New Medical Education Podcast Brings Bridges to Life for UCSF Community

Peter Chin-Hong, MD (right), discusses the challenges of infectious diseases in the third episode of the Spark podcast. An interview with MS2 and Olympic volleyball player Ogonna Nnamani (center) is featured in the second episode.
Photos: Elisabeth Fall

By Karin Fleming

Last summer, UCSF School of Medicine launched the new Bridges Curriculum, placing the school at the forefront of nationwide advances in medical education. To bring ‘Bridges in Action’ stories to the UCSF community and their extended colleagues, a new podcast The Spark: Medical education for curious minds launched in May 2017. The Spark presents the people and perspectives behind medical education at UCSF and its community of learners.

Episode interviews with medical students and UCSF faculty focus on topics ranging from global health research to new approaches in healthcare equity to novel ways to tackle today’s most challenging illnesses. Each episode provides a glimpse into how medical students at UCSF are trained to think adaptively, grow continuously as learners, and adopt the habits of mind in scientific inquiry and discovery around complex health issues.

“Through The Spark, we feature knowledge and insights from faculty, staff and students in the School of Medicine’s medical education community, delivered in monthly episodes,” says Kevin H. Souza, MS, associate dean for medical education. “Our goal for the podcast is to share UCSF’s rich history of medical education, which set the stage for Bridges and enabled a collective, collaborative approach to training tomorrow’s physician leaders. ‘Spark’ seemed a fitting name to capture the ways we ignite and inspire new ideas and passion for the highest caliber medical education.”

In May, Souza interviewed the School of Medicine’s new associate dean for curriculum, John Davis, MD, PhD; June included reflections on Bridges, one year post-launch; the July episode features the research of infectious diseases expert and Professor of Medicine Peter Chin-Hong, MD, as well as the global health work of medical student Christy Zachek.

“The Spark illustrates how our medical school’s curriculum supports and fosters core values of the UCSF physician, in that they embody our culture of inquiry and the mission to meet the needs of a diverse population of patients, measure and continuously improve the quality of healthcare for all patients, and help eliminate disparities in access to quality healthcare,” says Souza.

Hosted on SoundCloud and available on the School of Medicine’s YouTube channel, The Spark is produced in a collaboration between UCSF’s Technology Enhanced Education team, and communications staff in the office of medical education. A small team of instructional designers, writers and editors have partnered to expand the reach of multimedia content about medical education, patient care, and medical research at UCSF. The podcast content builds upon online and social media content about medical education, via the School of Medicine’s channels and adds new means to engage with students, faculty, residents and graduates, staff, and members of the general public who are interested in medical and healthcare advances at UCSF.